Authors: Philip Athans
“I’d wish myself a thousand times a thousand pieces of gold, for one,” Abdel answered. This made Montaron laugh. “I’d drop the Sword Coast into the sea just to see it sink and make zombies of everyone who ever spoke ill of me.”
“Make me lord o’ Waterdeep?” the halfling joked.
“Aye,” Abdel said, mimicking Montaron’s peculiar brogue, “ye’ll be king o’ the world.”
The two of them laughed, and when Montaron finally settled down to sleep he said, “Sometimes, lad, things ‘ave a way o’ surprisin’ ye.”
“Yes,” Abdel said, yawning, “they do at that.”
Abdel had visited the Friendly Arms over half a dozen times in the past several years, but the sight of it always surprised him. It had been a rather well-built fortress in its day, constructed by a cult of the now-dead god Bhaal. The story was that the band of gnomes who ran the place had run afoul of the cultists, and after years of fighting back and forth the gnomes drove the Bhaal-worshipers out. This seemed unlikely to Abdel, though, as he’d met a few gnomes in his day and found it difficult to believe that people who barely reached his knee could drive anyone out of anywhere.
Abdel didn’t know anything about this god Bhaal, but if it was true that his worshipers were driven out of such an imposing stone fortress by these tiny forest folk… well, no wonder the god didn’t survive the Time of Troubles.
Xzar’s delusional ramblings weren’t lost on Abdel either. The fact that the mage had used Bhaal as the focus of his fantasies about Abdel’s parentage must have meant that Xzar had heard the story of the origin of the Friendly Arms as well. If they’d been in the Dalelands his father might have been Elminster, or maybe he should move to Evermeet and take on Corellon Larethian as his sire.
The Friendly Arms was a little village as much as it was a fortress. Within the high curtain walls of gray stone was a collection of buildings devoted to any number of purposes but all serving travelers in one way or another.
Abdel and his two companions approached the front gate and a heavy wooden drawbridge was lowered over a moat. Coming in from the south they could see that the moat didn’t make it all the way around the keep yet, and there were teams of diggers and other laborers halfheartedly wandering about. The moat was a new addition, then, and certainly more for show than for defense. The Friendly Arms never locked its gate, and everyone was welcome inside, so the likelihood of siege was hardly pressing.
They passed over the drawbridge and made their way with no wasted time from the pillared entrance to one of the biggest buildings in the broad, open bailey. Even if Abdel had never been there before, the sound of revelry leaking into the early evening air would have told him that this was the inn proper. It was a long walk to the high oaken door, and as they crossed the bailey they passed a group of gnome guards. The sight of the tiny fighters made Abdel smile. The three guards, each no taller than two and a half feet, were dressed in fancy but functional ring mail. Their short swords were smaller and no doubt lighter than Abdel’s dagger. One was holding a spear from which fluttered the banner of the Friendly Arms, less heraldry than advertising. The three little men nodded to Abdel and returned his smile, then turned their attention abruptly to the inn.
Abdel noticed a sudden change in the tavern sounds. Montaron stopped too and held out a hand to gently block Xzar.
The mage twitched away and shouted, “Stop touching me!”
“Shhh,” the halfling warned as the gnome guards began moving slowly toward the inn.
There were pauses in the steady sound of laughter and frivolity, that was what first alerted the guards, then came loud cheers, a crash, and breaking glass followed by a loud grunt.
Montaron laughed and said, “Sounds like my kind o’ place!”
The three travelling companions followed the gnome guards to the door. Abdel stood behind the gnomes as one of them opened the door, and he was hit with the blast of sound from inside just a fraction of a second before the chair hit him in the face. Down the big sellsword went, never seeing the three little gnomes wade into the crowd. The guards’ fists were small, but when they brought them into play at their own eye level, taller men dropped like sacks of flour.
Abdel, angry, bleeding from the nose, stood up, grabbed the broken chair, and surveyed the dark room full of doubled-over men. He gave up hope of finding the one who threw the chair, but he gave the room an icy glare all the same. Laughter started, and Abdel turned red before he realized they weren’t laughing at him but at the man being carried out by the three gnomes. They were dragging the dirty, vile-smelling commoner more than carrying him, and the big man made a small sound every time his head bounced against the rough wooden planks of the floor.
Abdel looked at the now unconscious man with undisguised fury as he was dragged past. Montaron grabbed the chair when he saw Abdel jerk forward.
“Leave ‘im,” the halfling said. “Looks like ‘e’s paid in full.”
Abdel stood stock still and tried to let the anger pass, but it wouldn’t. He wanted to kill someone. Montaron was looking at him curiously.
“See?” Xzar stage-whispered.
The halfling pushed the mage away and pulled gently on the chair. Abdel let him take it.
“Ye’ll be needin’ a drink,” he said, and Abdel nodded.
A gnome woman climbed up on top of the bar and called to the room, “Next one throws a chair gets my fist in his danglies. This” and she paused long enough to belch resoundingly “is a classy establishment.”
A cheer followed this warning, and the crowded room fell back into the general chaos of a night at the Friendly Arms.
The ale was good, and after three pints of it Abdel was starting to relax. He sat at the bar and kept his head down, ignoring the tussle and bluster of the ever more crowded barroom. He’d not spoken since he’d been hit by the chair, and though his nose hadn’t bled much, he refused to wipe the blood away. The big sellsword was quite a sight. He’d been rude and sullen enough that Montaron soon left his side, disappearing quickly into a crowd that naturally towered over the little halfling. Xzar was easier to get rid of, the mage having found a dark booth, in a corner, in which to sit and mutter to himself.
Abdel didn’t do much thinking, he just sat there and drank. He wasn’t one for self-pity, but it had been Nine Hells of a tenday. The thought of leaving again in the morning with the halfling and that damnable muttering mage didn’t appeal to him in the slightest. His purse was light, though, and not getting any heavier. The trip to Nashkel, if he took it, would be a lean one. He’d decided to let Montaron and Xzar go on their way without him. decided to look for some paying job here at the Friendly Arms, when he remembered why he’d come here in the first place. Gorion, with his dying breath, had sent him here to look forand Abdel couldn’t remember the names.
“Damn it all to the Abyss,” he mumbled to himself, “What does it matter anyway?”
Abdel ordered a fourth pint from the pleasantly gruff gnome woman who was tending the bar. He’d paid her every time from a dwindling supply of coppers.
“Nah,” the gnome told him when he slid another four copper pieces across the wet bar, “this one’s for the smack on the beak.”
Abdel nodded, accepting the woman’s drink, then accepting the wet rag she held out to him. He wiped the blood off his face and allowed himself a short laugh when he realized the gnome woman hadn’t gone away but was just standing there staring at him.
“You should put a window in that door,” he said, “so a guest can see what’s coming before he opens it.”
The gnome laughed, said, “I’ll pass the suggestion along,” while waiting for him to finish the pint in one swallow, standing ready with a fifth pint. This time she took his copper.
“Well met, good sir,” a richly Amnian-accented voice next to him said.
Abdel turned slightly to his right and glared at the lean Amnian with a look that would give the man no illusions that his company was welcome. The Amnian flinched at the stare.
“You are Abdel,” he said, “Abdel Adrian.”
“Gods,” Abdel breathed, was this the man Gorion had come to see?
“You are,” the Amnian said. “Where is Gorion?”
“Dead,” Abdel said simply, then his throat caught, but he didn’t cry. “Who is this Adrian?”
“You are not Abdel Adrian?” the Amnian asked.
“I am Abdel, son of Gorion, but I go by no other name.”
The Amnian’s response to this was simply a puzzled stare. The man was obviously a half-elf. His long, thin face and ears just barely too round to be called pointed would have been proof enough of that, but the bright violet of his eyes was a sure sign of elf blood. The human part of him was surely Amnian; he had a large, long nose and dusky olive skin. He was dressed as if for battle, in dented armor that he was obviously uncomfortable in. He was wearing a helmet, which, considering the surroundings, seemed a wise idea. His lips curled and twitched. He was nervous.
“You have come here to meet me, though,” the Amnian said. “I am Khalid.”
That was it. Khalidthe last word his father spoke as his life drained from his punctured eye, then Abdel remembered that there was another.
“Jah,” he said, “I was to meet Khalid and Jah.”
“Jaheira, yes,” Khalid said, grinning ear-to-ear, but still nervous, “she is my wife. She is here.”
The Amnian turned instinctively toward a table on the other side of the room, but the crowd blocked his view.
“Come,” he said, “sit with us, and tell us what befell your father. He was a great man, a hero in his own way, and he will be missed.”
“What do you know of it?” Abdel asked, bile suddenly rising to the back of his throat. His voice was full of menace. “What was he to you?”
Khalid stared at Abdel as if the sellsword had suddenly transformed into a cobra. He was scared of Abdel, and he was not at all able to hide it.
“He was a friend,” Khalid answered, “that is all. I mean no disrespect.”
Abdel wanted to say something rude to the Amnian, but he couldn’t. Instead he fished in his pouch for money for a sixth pint of ale. He came out with only three coppers.
“Bhaal!” he cursed loudly, stood, and threw the coppers into the crowd.
A drunk somewhere muttered something mildly offensive after having been clipped on the temple by one of the hard thrown copper coins. Abdel shot to attention, and more than one man, even innocent ones, scurried off to darker corners. Sweat broke out visibly on Khalid’s upper lip.
“Gods,” the Amnian said, “what did he tell you?”
Abdel looked down at the Amnian but said nothing.
“I will be happy to buy you a drink,” Khalid said. “Please, come with me. We don’t want any more attention do we?”
Abdel grunted and let himself be led through the crowd. He caught sight of Montaron for only the briefest of moments. The halfling was holding a silk purse, and Abdel was sure the little man winked at him.
Abdel took a couple of deep breaths to try to calm himself, and when Khalid said, “Here she is,” Abdel looked up, and his breath caught.
Jaheira was beautiful. Half-elf like her mate, she too must have had a human parent from Amn. The two looked oddly alike, but both the elf and human sides favored Jaheira the more. Her face was wide and dark, her lips full, and her eyes brightnearly the same violet as Khalid’s-and they sparkled with intelligence. Her face was framed in thick hair that might have been black if she were all human, but her elf blood highlighted it with streaks of fiery copper. Even though she sat, Abdel could tell she was strong of build, rugged even. She wore a bodice of hard leather that was scratched from what might have been blade strikes. She was armored.
When her eyes caught his, he saw rather than heard her gasp. Abdel sat without looking at the chair. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from hers, and she did nothing to discourage him. Her full lips twitched like her husband’s. She was nervous too, and though Abdel would never come between a man and his wife, he couldn’t help hoping that she was nervous for different reasons than Khalid was.
“Why was I sent here?” Abdel asked them both, though he continued to look at Jaheira. “My father didn’t live to tell me.”
“How did Gorion die?” Jaheira asked.
“Sellswords,” Abdel said, “like me. We were ambushed on the Way of the Lion. I killed the men who attacked us but not soon enough.”
“There are forces that didn’t want us to meet,” Khalid said, “Gorion knew that. It was…” the Amnian hesitated, and Abdel thought he might be lying, “it was why Gorion wanted you to come with him to meet us.”
“My father was a monk,” Abdel said, “a priest, a man of letters and such. What could he have been caught up in that would set such forces against him? What are you people about?”
Abdel was growing angry again. He hadn’t been able to blame the mercenaries for Gorion’s death. Those men were just doing what he himself had done all his adult life. Someone had paid them, and it took real money to hire five experienced killers for a wilderness ambush.
“There are … forces,” Jaheira said, her voice barely audible in the crowded room, “who want to bring war.”
A comely servant girl set down two pints of ale. Abdel kept his eyes on Jaheira as he downed his, again in one swallow.
“So what else is new?” he asked sarcastically. “I’ve made a living from one ‘force’ or another wanting war. It’s what people do.”
Jaheira was sincerely confused by his last statement, but when she turned a questioning gaze on her husband, Abdel knew she was asking something else, something more important and more frightening to her. Khalid nodded, and Jaheira turned back to Abdel.
“This is different,” she said, her voice even quieter, and Abdel had to strain to hear her. “This is your bro”
A glass bottle disintegrated against the back of Abdel’s head, and Jaheira had to flinch away from the shards of glass. Abdel didn’t bother to wipe the residual wine off the back of his head or pick the glass from his black hair. He stood up and turned, and the crowd parted as if they were puppets attached to his joints. At the door, a far throw away, was the man who’d been dragged out by the three gnome guards. The chair thrower.